you can only save one
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: You've done everything right. You've made new friends, new family. You've spared Asgore's life, and you're trying your hardest to spare Asriel's, as well. It seems you're on the right track - until he confronts you with an impossible choice. Who will you choose?
1. Chapter 1

You struggle desperately against the ghostly power pinning you in place, but you can't move anything except your mouth. You bite down on your lips to keep from screaming. Or crying. Or cursing. Or all three at once.

"You cannot move your body," Chara whispers in your ear in that matter-of-fact voice they use when they're detaching themself from the situation. You try to turn to them in alarm - they're hovering somewhere above your left shoulder, and you know that tone of voice, it means they're in pain - but you can't move your head at all.

"What's happening?" you ask, wondering through your panic if you can gnaw through the restraints keeping you immobile. Then you ask your brain to shut up, _please_. Those types of thoughts aren't helping.

Chara rests a hand on your shoulder, and their bowed head ducks into your peripheries. You try to lean into their touch, try to comfort them, but you can't do anything. Cursing looks more and more like an appealing option. Asriel's right there, laughing at you and saying something you're trying desperately to ignore. "Say something?" you ask them in a whisper, searching for a distraction.

"This is the end," they tell you solemnly. They've always had a penchant for melodrama.

You want to kick them - gently, with a pillow taped to your foot or something, but the urge to kick is still there. That was not the sort of uplifting remark you had in mind. Although they were pretty quiet in Snowdin, only commenting on something spectacular, they got much louder by the time you hit the True Lab. Then they used their incorporeality to cheer you up, bouncing off walls and pulling faces at you through screens of freaky text. You wish they'd do that again. You want to see them pull a funny face. You liked the one where they scrunched up their nose and raised their eyebrows up into their bangs. It doesn't look like they're in the mood now.

Chara's completely still now, nearly as immobile as you are. Except instead of Asriel's weird powers holding them in place, it's the weight of their own emotions that drags them down. Their eyes are fixed on Asriel. He's still monologuing, eyes razor-sharp and full of disdain, and even though their Soul is now pretty separate from yours, you can still feel their pain drifting through your link and stabbing at your Soul. It's a pain not unlike the knives they wield. Like the threads of your Soul are coming apart.

They shuffle their feet, stare at their shoes from behind a curtain of their own hair. When they speak, their words are a quiet condemnation. "I left him behind."

"Not your fault," you tell them firmly. You try to put as much warm hug into your next words as possible, try to make your words soft and easily digestible, like pie or chocolate. You're not sure if Asriel can hear you and Chara talking, but you keep your voice as quiet as you can anyway without letting conviction slip from your voice. "You tried to free everyone. That's not your fault."

Chara doesn't respond. Their silence unnerves you more than your stomach can hold and you swallow nervousness like bile. A need to return wells up within you, nearly a physical ache, and you stop struggling. Asriel notices instantly and grins, saying something that would probably make you sad if you were paying attention. But you're not. You screw your eyes shut - another part of your body you can move, thankfully, you don't want to think about the pain in your eyes if you couldn't blink - and reach mentally for your save screen.

Chara hardly even looks up as your Soul reaches desperately for the load button. Even when you reach out as hard as you can, you can do nothing more than gently brush its surface. "Nothing happened."

You muster your determination and try again. You make even less contact this time. Chara repeats the same message of defeat. Asriel's still talking and you're still ignoring him. You have to remind yourself to blink so your eyes don't dry out. You grit your teeth and try again. This time, Chara says nothing.

You feel frustration well up in you, and you try to clench your fists, dig your nails into your palms, but. Your inability to move only sours your mood further. If only you'd seen this sooner, if you'd been kinder or moved faster or thought quicker -

Chara must pick up on your self-recrimination, because they wince a smile at you with a trembling mouth. "It is not your fault," they repeat your own words, and you smile back at them as best you can. It comes out stretched and uncomfortable. It's hard to maintain. You let it drop.

You take a couple of deep breaths. Asriel grins at your obvious frustration. "Hee hee. Are you having fun yet? Or are you finally ready to die?" he taunts, tightening the pressure around your arms, just because he can.

Chara's fingers tighten convulsively around your shoulder. He's so lonely. You can't tell if the pity and pain you're feeling are entirely yours.

"Asriel, please stop," you plead. You want so badly to reach a hand toward him, you can see that he's hurting, but he won't let you. He won't let you help.

His eyes narrow and he laughs at your plea. "Don't you want to be friends?" he suggests, mocking you with his lilting tone. "We can meet each other, over and over and over again, for all time! Doesn't that sound like fun?" With a flick of his finger, he sends stars barrelling toward your eyelids, just because he can - not to do damage, but maybe just to break you a little more.

Chara's hand continues tightening around you. You draw strength from it and keep struggling. "Why are you still _trying_?" Asriel asks, befuddled and angry. He is the only bright spot against the dark and the void that wraps around his silhouette like a cloak. He clenches his fist and does the star thing again. When you swallow helpless tears, the moisture scrapes over your dry, nervous throat.

"Because I want to help," you manage. You mean it.

"Hee hee!" he laughs. The sound grates against your temples and presses against your skull and you want to rub your forehead but you can't. You think he might've had a nice laugh once, even if he doesn't now. "Haven't you learned by now that you can't escape me?"

"I don't want to. I want to help."

Asriel stares down at you and jolts closer. You try to whip back, but you can't. "You really are an idiot," he says, almost fondly.

"Chara, please help," you beg them, willing them to do something.

Asriel hisses. "Who are you talking to?" he demands, and his eyes are wide and pupils tiny and his teeth are bared. His entire demeanor shifts, like a light switch flicking off.

Chara lets go of your arm, then you're floating, alone. You can't feel or see them, and that simple fact unnerves you more than you'd like to admit. Then, suddenly, determination wells up within you. It's not yours.

"What was that?" Asriel roars, shoving his face inches from yours. Another couple of inches and his horns would have eliminated any need for a haircut for the next several years.

You can feel Chara's fingers tightening around your shoulder, you're going to bruise later, but you don't really care because you can see them smile out of the corner of your eye. They're staring straight at Asriel with their teeth bared. Their expression would look angry, but you know them better than that - that's determination crinkles around their eyes, the set of their mouth, the hunch of their shoulders.

"But maybe, with what little power you have..." Chara whispers right next to your ear. Their voice is low and serious.

Hope burns within you, bright and powerful. "With what little power you have," they repeat, their smile fledging into a grin, "you can save something else."

Their determination mixes with yours. They settle their hands on your shoulders, their palms warm and comforting, and let their Soul float around your head. You push yours out of your body as well. You know that's dumb, Asriel could tear you to pieces with the crunch of his finger, the flick of a toenail, but you want to trust. You're itching to act. To save.

Asriel demands your attention. He's calling Chara's name, but you can't really hear him over the white noise in your ears. You're hovering face-to-face, toe-to-toe with a four-option menu.

But something's different, you see, running your eyes over your options. You can no longer Act.

You can Save.

You start laughing, a semi-hysterical giggle that bursts out of you entirely without the consent of your frontal lobe, and feel tears springing to your eyes. This is it, you think gleefully, you've done it! You can save them!

Chara starts laughing with you. On your shoulders their hands drum a tiny little beat, a sort of anthem that they share with you before leaping into the air, twirling weightlessly around your shoulders. You send your whoops up to accompany them, then reach your Souls out as hard as you can - you can't tell if yours or Chara's is leading toward Asriel but at this point you don't _care_ , you're grinning too hard. "You reach out to Asriel's soul," says Chara's joyous voice from high above you, whooping and sonorous, and they pull off a backflip as they float gracefully above your head.

"What was that?" Asriel asks, terrified. He looks smaller, somehow. It's only when your feet touch the ground below you that you realize you can move now. You take a moment to wiggle your toes against the ground and do a couple of excited hops, then look up toward Chara. They're watching you from above, doing an upside-down pirouette in midair. You wonder if they danced before they died. You shake out your sore hands and bend your wrists and step toward him eagerly, then look up. Chara grins and shoots you a thumbs-up. Together, you shove your Souls a bit closer to Asriel, who flinches back and shrinks even further. He has a body that's more disjointed than his Hyperdeath form. Plus he has wings now, you notice, great sparkly galactic things that would make excellent nightlights. "You called out to your friends," Chara says, and your Soul sings to the monsters you love, a high soaring note of hope.

Six Souls react to yours, then suddenly they're here! Everyone - Mom and Sans and Papyrus, Asgore and Undyne and Alphys. Your mind leaps and soars, and you laugh despite yourself.

It takes you a second to process that something is wrong. You shrug it off, hope still singing through your being. They're here, you can save them. Asriel says something in his gravelly voice - there's smug triumph in his tone and maybe a subtle undercurrent of anxiety, but you don't focus on his words, that itch develops into an urge that propels you forward.

You reach out both of your hands, palms extended to your friends, and think of launching yourself into Toriel's arms. But then Chara lands beside you, and you turn to smile at them.

They don't smile back. They landed hard. Their expression is tight and stony and unhappy, and the juxtaposition of your emotions against theirs sends your core reeling. The room suddenly feels cold, and you wrap your arms around yourself, looking a question at Chara. Even though you can't see anyone's face, it feels like no one is smiling.

"You can only save one," says Chara. They say it like they're repeating a fact someone already told you.

They're staring at their feet again. They do that sometimes - when they persuaded you to kill Toriel when you reclaimed your soul the first time, when you accidentally tripped too hard into a line of Moldsmals because Chara was egging you on. That look, the one you know too well, means something is going to go wrong.

You register, finally, what Asriel said.

Then your brain catches up with your feet, all too abruptly, and you stumble away from them, horrified. You shake your head vigorously. Chara crosses their arms and doesn't look at you. Your breath catches in your throat, and you can feel an acid burning in the back of your throat and in your tear ducts and you hunch your shoulders and you will yourself not to cry. How can you possibly choose? How can you pick?

There is a solution, you tell yourself fervently. There has to be a solution. You just...you just have to find it.

Steeling yourself, you turn to look at your friends. Each Soul pulses with its own brilliant light that illuminates the underside of the nothing shrouding their faces, a strange white blankness that obscures their eyes and their expressions. Still, even in death Papyrus and Sans hover close together, their hands almost touching; even in death Toriel and Asgore's robes pool together at their feet; even in death Undyne plants a foot in front of Alphys, ready to leap forward, and Alphys faces her with a quiet resolution that she buries normally under ramen lids and anime covers.

Your heart is shredding itself to pieces. No need for Asriel to smite you, now - your Soul takes up that mantle readily. You can't pick.

You can't.

Who is most worthy to see the surface? Who is the most deserving of feeling the sun on their skin, of witnessing the birth of the new world?

Toriel would take good care of you, and you would never leave her side again. She would make you cinnamon-butterscotch pie every morning and would teach you politics every evening and wrap you in blankets when you are cold. But she already has so much guilt, and even though she despises Asgore...choosing her would be selfish. She would miss Asgore, and Sans, and she would smile for you even though she would hurt.

Asgore would lead monsterkind. He alone would take command, would unify the two races, would work ceaselessly to ensure that there is no war when the monsters ascend. He alone could teach you to act as ambassador. He alone could make you tea for every meal, could show you how to garden. But Asgore, too, is already broken and bent with the weight of his own grief, his own guilt. Choosing him would help the future of humans and monsters, but it would break his soul.

Sans would make jokes. He would spread brightness and cheer. He would help Grillby build a new establishment, he would help the spiders move their base to the surface. He would keep that mask up, and he would miss his brother, and you wonder like Papyrus does what would happen if Sans didn't have such a cool brother by his side. Given your memories of Chara's genocide, you don't think he would last long. Choosing him would be cruel.

Papyrus would smile, too. He would do everything possible for a lone skeleton to ease the transition for monsterkind into the new world. He would make as much spaghetti as one kitchen could handle, would buy all the cast-iron pots monster gold could afford. He would make puns, and look to his side for an encouragement, and would receive none. You don't know how Papyrus would react to losing his brother, to losing Undyne and all of his friends, but like with Sans...you don't want to know. Another heartless act.

Alphys would do her best. She would invent, and invent, and drown herself in her work. She would invite you to anime nights and you would teach her to make homemade ramen, like your cousins used to. She would show you Mew Mew Kissy Cutie and you would tease her about loving the sequel. She would watch a human show with the spear-wielding heroine in a dress and would cry and you would not know what to do. She would try her best, would try to go back, believing desperately that she could find a solution, but she would fail.

Undyne would smile for you. She would make you spaghetti and warm her hands with you in front of the fire above the mountain, and would even drag herself out into the cold of night to see the stars. She would fight to learn diplomacy, but wind up fighting only herself, instead. She would throw herself into her training, would work herself ragged. She would blame herself, for losing Papyrus and Asgore, and break.

You press your palms into your eyelids. Bright lights spark into the nothing you can see, and your eyes start to burn. It _hurts_. Tears drip down your face, and you wipe at your nose, for a brief second hating yourself and Asriel and every single monster you cannot save.

No.

You scrub at your eyes, still not opening them fully, and jump when a ghostly hand lands on your shoulder. Chara pats your shoulder awkwardly. It almost makes you laugh.

You still don't want to open your eyes, so you turn a bit and bury your face in their shoulder. They jerk back a bit, surprised, but after a couple of moments they pat both hands uncomfortably on your back. With your forehead buried against their neck, you smile a bit. It's an effort. When Chara speaks, their voice is strong and resolute. "I believe in you."


	2. Chapter 2

You let Chara rest their hands on your shoulders. They like doing that. You think they might have been an older sibling at one point, because back when you fought off Reaper Bird and your Soul was splintering before your eyes, you could feel protection singing through their veins, a sort of stoic vigilance that wanted you behind them and not in front of the butterflies erupting from its head.

The Souls just sort of hover there, right in front of Asriel's looming body. You pointedly don't look at them and ignore the way they drift around slowly, aimlessly, drifting apart but still close to each other. However far they drift to one side, you notice despite consciously not looking at them, they stay tight-knit, always within an arm's length of another. Even now, as you pointedly don't watch, Papyrus tilts his head toward Undyne and Sans, following him, floats a bit toward Alphys.

Asriel has been watching you. For a change, he's not taunting, or laughing, or yelling. He was just quiet, watching you watch your friends. Now he speaks, and though his tone is quiet his silence speaks louder than his syllables. "Who were you talking to?"

You shrug at him, then turn to Chara out of the corner of your eye. For a long moment you two exchange glances. Chara's face contracts into fear and anger, then relaxes slowly, inch by inch, into resolution. With a grand flourish typical of their personality, they flick their hand over their locket and pull on the chain as far as it can go, holding it out in front of them like a small sun.

Nothing seems to change from your point of view, just Chara posing dramatically with their back ramrod straight and chin lifted, but Asriel's face locks up and his eyes fix on Chara. He speaks their name in a tiny breath that coils into your eardrums anyway.

Chara cringes, for some reason, and lowers their hands. It's a quick spasmic contortion that disappears as soon as it flashed across their face. With hesitant movements, they wave awkwardly at him. You can see their conscious effort to plaster an indifferent expression on their face.

"Chara?" he repeats, louder, looking less and less able to suspend his own disbelief.

"Hi, Asriel," they say quietly. It's the first time they haven't said "Greetings," and you wonder why.

"Is that really you?"

"It is really me," they confirm quietly.

They float up toward him, until their feet tap on the air level with his chin, looking straight at his eyes. Up that far above you, you can barely see the back of their head, even when you crane your neck really far backward. You pad over to him. The top of his foot is about in line with your kneecap. From this angle, you can see both of their faces.

Asriel watches them with nervous eyes. He's still wearing that robe and you can see rainbows winding through his horns and shooting through his fur. The colors dance off his fur like the sparkle of the mushrooms off of Waterfall, and it gives off the same melancholy blue tint - a far cry from the derisive red of earlier, of his eyes narrowed and furious.

"I'm sorry..." he whispers. "I should've listened to you."

Chara just looks bewildered for a split-second, a flash of confusion as quick as a mere frame of a video. "No, you should not have," they refute him, crossing their arms. They almost look uncomfortable, and they didn't even look uncomfortable when you tried to hug the Amalgamate so this must be really weird for them. It takes you a couple of seconds to figure out what he's referring to. "It has been a long lesson," they say, and you stand on your tip-toes because you really can't hear them from this far down, and you wish you could fly too, "but I know now that to kill is not necessary."

"Everyone would've gone free though," he sniffles. He wipes his nose, then drags his hand across his robe. The sparkling lights kind of absorb the residue, and you wonder if his cloak eats everything or just God-snot.

It's a dumb-looking motion for a being that colossal, and it's equally dumb for you to feel sorry for a being that had just tried to kill you, but he looks pretty pathetic like that, kind of curling in on himself.

"But what sort of future would they have had?" Chara asks, pretty brusquely. Irritation spears through you, and you glance down at your chest before realizing it's not yours. Strange - they've never been quite so worked up about, well, anything.

"They would've been free."

"They would have been killed," they say sharply. "You are acting stupid."

"'s not stupid," he says petulantly, and sniffles. Yet another strange motion on a giant.

"You are not listening to reason." The word bites off their tongue. "The humans would not have taken very kindly to our return, with so little warning. Especially given that we would have needed to kill six of them for our own purposes." You recognize the exasperation in their voice it's the one they use when they're trying not to show that they care. You're proud of yourself for recognizing their tones so easily, but also really proud of them for using it on someone else. While it was really nice to be the object of that concern (no matter how much they hid it), they've gotta have more than one friend!

"But I should've trusted you. I know you h-hate when I didn't listen to you..."

Chara's suspended fifteen feet off the ground, and they can just barely reach the top of his horns. Chara uses this height to uncross their arms and punch him in the snout. They do no damage. He looks at them askance. "You listened to your judgment, and for that I cannot fault you. You have a kind soul, Asriel."

Despite himself, Asriel flushes deep red. "T-thank you," he stutters out uncertainly. "So do you?" It's intended to be a compliment - it comes out more like a question - but Chara grins and takes it at face value anyway. "Still," he says, sobering abruptly. He glances down to where you're standing by his leg. You're getting a crick in your neck, and your vertebrae have probably shrunk a couple of inches. Thinking about your spine makes you think about skeletons, then about the brothers, then about the Souls and the eerie stillness behind you, so you stop thinking about vertebrae and rotate your neck in a motion way too tense to be relaxing. "I don't know what to do."

From below him, you look a question up at his face. He looks down at you then glances away hurriedly. Despite that, it's clear he's addressing you. "I have all these Souls, but...I don't know how to put them back where they should be. I can't...I can't connect to them. They would need a kindred spirit, a source of compassion and love to support their own, and...well, as strong as you are, you're just enough for one."

Chara watches Asriel look miserably down a couple of feet from your head. Then they bonk his head again with their fist. "Hey!" he yelps, surprised, and they smirk at him and rocket far above his shoulders. "That was mean, Chara," he whines. Asriel's arms try to encircle himself again, but Chara is suddenly hovering over his cape and tugging at his ear. Unthinkingly, he lifts an arm to swat at them, but they leap out of the way with a tinkling laugh.

Amused, you plop yourself onto the ground and shift your weight onto your hands, then lean back to watch Chara flit around Asriel's head, distracting his eyes from sinking again. They are agile, as if ice skating in midair. Even when they jolt backward, their fall appears smooth and seamless. "This reminds me of our childish games of tag. You would always lose those, do you remember, Azzy?"

"I would not!" he pouts, a strange expression on his mature, lined face. He stands up even straighter and jabs a knuckle (his nails are sharp so he keeps those tucked safely in his own paws) toward Chara. They raise just out of his arm's reach - he jumps for them and you laugh despite yourself - and with a quick glance toward you, Chara sticks their tongue out at him. "Get down here!" he demands. "I am the God of Hyperdeath, I will - I'm gonna..."

"You will pout at me," Chara suggests, flipping onto their stomach in midair and resting their chin on the back of their hands. "As you can see, I am quite terrified."

"No fair!" Asriel complains. "You're dead, you can fly! That's overpowered."

They grin cheerily at him, and shrug. "You can conjure stars."

"Yeah," he says, scuffing his foot on the ground, "but I don't know how stars would affect dead people so I can't attack you like that, just get down here!"

"I will descend if you do not hit me," Chara mandates.

After a long moment, during which a kaleidoscope of intense expressions flashes across Asriel's face, he huffs out a breath and waves them down, burying a smile in the long collar of his gleaming rainbow robe. Then they reach his shoulders, and keep descending, tweaking his horns on the way down. They grab your hand and drag you upward, and you bite down on a gasp, kicking your feet a bit frantically as you float farther and farther into the air. When the two of you land on Asriel's shoulder, past glimmering multi-colored armor and fantastic star-weapons embedded in every crevice of his belt, you grin your thanks at them and pretend you don't see the pleased look that creeps across their face.

They sit right next to his ears, and you sit a bit higher than them, wedged between their left thigh and one of those ridiculous curling shoulder-guards that scintillate as part of Asriel's armor. Despite the cramped quarters, you're surprisingly comfortable. Chara and Asriel are warm, and though you blush to think of it, Asriel kind of reminds you of that stuffed leopard you had before you fell down, except even whiter and fluffier. You wish you had a pillow, again, but this time because you're warm and content enough to take a nap.

The silence settles comfortably over your shoulders. You cross your legs and set yourself to twining little braids in Asriel's shoulder. His hair is remarkably soft. You wonder if he uses conditioner or something for his entire body.

"Frisk," Chara calls with a true smile, stilling your hands, "did I ever tell you about our play-fighting in the garden? Asriel decided that his weapon of choice would be a sword and shield of flowers."

You tilt your head, considering. Flowers had never seemed effective weapons to you. Chara continues, pressing the side of their head into one of Asriel's ears, their movements a bit stiff, like stretching their legs after a long nap. "But not the live ones, no, those still had potential. He planted a small side-garden in the throne room, then waited weeks for those flowers to live through their natural life. Only then would he challenge me, armed with a sword and shield of stalks petals."

"It was worth it. And it worked!" Asriel nods decisively.

"Flowers are one of my only weaknesses." Though they crack with a straight face, they wink one eye at you when Asriel blinks. They settle themself more comfortably in his shoulder, their ankles dangling around his ribs. "But it was entirely ineffective against Mother's kitchen spoon."

Indignant, he turns and butts their forehead as retaliation. His nose dwarfs their entire face. "It's the imagination that counts."

"Your imagination worked nearly as well as your shield against her ladle," they snort. It's a raw, undignified snort that seems to surprise both of them.

You watch them banter for a bit. You think that's what siblings should be like. You wonder if you could do that with Chara and Asriel one day, too.

You can only save one, your own brain reminds you unhelpfully. Unnoticed by the two reunited siblings, you stand up, balanced carefully between two of the curlicues of Asriel's shoulderpads, and study your friends below you. They're suspended, immobile, hanging lifelessly from the void as if there were an invisible string fastened around their necks and winding through their shoulders. The Void doesn't suit them, you think, and your brain does nothing useful except repeat, like the bells before a eulogy, _you can only save one_.

You can only save one. But perhaps there is only one who needs saving.

You stand up and shimmy over Chara. It takes a couple of pokes and prods and gestures to get your message across, but finally they stand and pick you up and place you on their other side. You're now right next to Asriel's face. He tilts his neck awkwardly to look at you. You can't see your own face, of course, but you're feeling that particular set expression chiseled across your face. You're also feeling, as Chara would say, very determined. You prod him on the cheekbones. "I've decided," you say.

His face falls. "Oh."

Chara flicks their hands toward you, sharply, until those four familiar buttons materialize in front of your face. Curiously, you poke at Save, and yep, you can feel six different paths with your friends' Souls at the ends. You glance at the options, then give Chara a tiny grin, and bypass the Save button entirely. You don't need it.

You wrap your arms as best you can around Asriel's neck - your hands connect on his other ear and clench into his fur - and bury your face into his cheek. Asriel makes a shocked, strangled noise that tickles your knee from where it's resting on his throat, and you snort a bit and squeeze tighter. Slowly, as if cradling a rose made of glass, Asriel lifts his hands (taking care not to jostle Chara) and folds both of his palms over your entire back. Finally, he lets his face fall forward until his eyebrow rests on the crown of your head.

Hugging Asriel is like hugging Toriel, you note, until...

With a smack, you and Chara and Asriel hit the ground. Somehow, you're still holding on to him. You bend your knees reflexively so you don't break your legs, and across from you, Asriel does the same.

Asriel is suddenly less than a fourth of his previous size. But he's still hugging you, face buried tightly in your neck. And...your hands are wrapped around his shoulders, not his neck, and your knees are brushing against his.

You're the same size! Overjoyed, you readjust your arms and shuffle him until your face rests on his neck too. His fur is soft and tickles your ears a little bit, but you don't mind. His sweater feels scratchy and itchy against your bare arms, but at the same time it's warm. You like it.

Evidently, Asriel feels the same. "Ha ha..." he laughs quietly to you. He does have a nice laugh. You feel his eyes scrunch closed against the base of your neck and you hold him tighter, trying to convey as much reassurance and compassion and hope as you can. You hope, desperately, that it's working. "I don't want to let go."

"Then I won't let you go," you tell him, and you close your eyes too, breathing evenly. You crack your eyes open, just a tad, and see Chara watching you both with a curious expression on their face. Careful not to let go, you wave them over with a wiggle of your fingers.

Tentatively, like balancing a burning flame on an open palm, they wrap their arms around both of your shoulders. Asriel tenses, and for a brief moment you fear he's going to recoil, but he just shifts his face until you've got one half on your shoulder and the other half of his face is buried in Chara's shirt. You pat his back soothingly, because your shoulder is getting wet. Chara tries to do the same. Their motions come out rough and sharp. He hiccups a laugh through his tears.

Something shifts, something subtle. You imagined the saving of a Soul to be dramatic, a whiplash return of emotion. But Asriel is made of compassion, so the saving of his Soul - no, to return it to his body - is a quiet affair, a small click of a puzzle piece sliding into place. You don't even know if he notices.

Then you hear motion behind you. You take care not to let go of his hand as you turn to look. Then you have to restrain yourself from hopping up and down with glee.

Asriel pulls back a bit to look over your shoulder. "They're back?" he whispers in a tiny voice. Now that you've got your eyes open, you can see a green shirt now, a nice well-adjusted shirt that doesn't sear stars in your eyes when you look at it. He hasn't quite let go of either of you.

Toriel opens her eyes, blinking several times, then Sans and Papyrus in the same moment. One by one their consciousnesses return to them in soft flickers of motion, of awareness. Then one by one, they step forward, until you are surrounded by your friends.

You keep a firm hold on Chara's hand, anticipating their bid for escape. They're visible now. They'll go back in your head once this dream ends, but for now they are quasi-tangible, a presence not quite there but always at your side.

Chara slips on a mask and faces them. Your family touches the floor, looking to each other then to you, and you wonder for a brief second how they will react - already you see anger flit across Sans's face and Toriel's hands clamp over her mouth.

But you're not worried, not really. Monsters are made of compassion, after all.

You square your shoulders. You feel a different sort of determination - the sort of quiet certainty that this will work. You already saved the world. You know, now, that you can save your friends.

All of them.


End file.
